Zack, the snag with your reasoning is that there is too little VALUE to those pitchers right now. No idea what kind of ‘quality bat’ you think could be obtained for pitchers at their lowest valuation ever, or others who have not yet shown anything. You want, maybe, Matt Holliday? Ian Kennedy comin atcha! Deal?

13th, I actually think there are a lot of ManFans here, from what I’m reading. Not sure how many would go with you as far as ‘endearing’ though. I used to think of him as just quirky, eccentric, unique … a kind of Mickey Rivers ‘on his own planet’ guy. But last two-three years, the which-knee-is-hurt stuff OYF mentioned … nope.

I think if he comes to the Yankees, they won’t let him get away with what Boston allowed. As for the motivation allegations, he may not play for another big contract again but he’ll certainly have the motivation to stick it to a certain team I’m sure he resents…

In any case, if the Yankees DON’T sign a FA bat, I think they should make the Cameron trade. Hoping that Melky will somehow turn it around in the winter league strikes me as very very foolish. Sure, he might. But its a lot more likely that he won’t, and as soon as the season starts he’ll revert to form. After all, its not like hes facing the cream of the crop down there.

I would really like to see the Yanks sign Manny, and then turn Nady and some of the ml pitching (and even Melky if anyone wants him) into a young impact bat or two. As mentioned in the last thread, the Rangers did that with Hamilton. With the rotation as it is, they can certainly afford to trade some of that depth.

I know, I know, the Yankees simply can’t trade young pitching because it wins championships and you need equal value blah blah blah. Suggesting trading prospects has become such sacrilege these days. But honestly, for the umpteenth time, the Yankees have more RH pitching than they can possibly deal with. Fine, you don’t want to trade Hughes, trade McAllister and Betencis, or Brackman. Or Bliech. Or Garcia. Or whomever.

I hear ya’ …. totally. I was thinking of him as a “low-risk”/”high-reward” potential pickup.

There are few suitable answers for CF out there right now.

I gave up on believing anything The Times had to say when the simply made shit up about a major Presidential candidate during the Presidential primary campaign.

If so, we’re best off with Teixeira to Anaheim for his 200 million, and then Manny stays in L.A. with Torre.

The little league games in Inwood and other areas I’ve seen, have a ton of Spanish kids there, and they are suffering through the same socio-economic condition as Black kids. I guess it’s more convenient to blame someone than to say, Black kids aren’t interested in baseball because the athletes most of them look up to play different sports – i.e basketball and football.

Not saying I don’t see African American kids in these little league games because I do, but the bottom line is that a lot of them end up enjoying more the other sports they play.

One thing though, having someone like Sabathia and players like Jimmy Rollins play for well known urban teams like Philadelphia and New York will help with the exposure. But I don’t think it is MLB’s fault.

My bet is that if Boston DOES land Teixeira, though, we’ll battle Anaheim for Ramirez … the old AL East arms race. Alas.

OK, no Cameron = get another (non-Manny) bat, please!

I hope that just the rumor of a deal is enough of a kick in the pants to Melky. Dude, you’re playing where Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Bernie Williams played.

Just say no to Manny. Yankees need to get younger, not bring in yet another older star whom they’ll wind up giving a bit too much money and a year or two too long.

I recently read an archived article on SI.com that tangentially touched on this, where Verducci is saying after the Clemens signing, it’s okay to hate the Yankees again … He references them as a “lunchpail” team … It’s hard to imagine now but there was an actual phenomenon where the personality of those teams temporarily mitigated some built-in, universal hatred of the Yankees.

Re: Rhoden…funny how when the Yanks were winning all those World Series, the clubhouse atmosphere was “professional”, “workmanlike”, etc. And now that they’re in the 8th year of a championship drought (and the Times is linked closely to the Sox), the Yanks suddenly have a “stale, cliché-ridden” clubhouse, known for being “antiseptic”?

In my perfect world, the Angels re-sign Tex, leaving only LAD as competition for Manny. Of course, if the Nat’s sign Tex, they’d probably wind up trading him to the Yankees in a few years and also pikcing up some of his salary.

I am not sure where Rhoden is coming in his article. He makes it seem like Sabathia’s stance on African Americans was controversial or cutting edge. It has pretty much become a baseball party line. Also, with Arod, Giambi, Joba, Damon, etc., the Yankees had some interesting personalities. Also, I’d like to see Rhoden explain to Jeter, Posada and Mo that they don’t have passion.

Back to Manny, I just don’t see the risk. After reading all the horror stories about Manny last year, you would think that he was hitting .200 with the Red Sox. In reality, he was one of their best hitters at the time of the trade. If Manny’s quitting mode is a 140 OPS+, that’s not a warning sign, but an extra incentive.

As for the Yankees offense, I think everyone is making it out to be pathetic, when in fact it was a tad above average last season. I realize that Abreu (120 OPS+) and Giambi (128 OPS+) are being lost, but it is reasonable to expect a big jump from Cano and the catcher position, while Jeter and CF are also good bets to see a nice bump. Furthermore, Swisher has the potential to approximate or better what you are losing from Abreu, while a healthy Matsui could more than make up for Giambi. Does this offense, as constituted, have the potential to be a machine as they were in 2007? Not really, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be one of the league’s best. Now, if they add a guy like Manny or Dunn, that could really take things to another level, but I don’t see that as an absolute necessity.

By the way, the Yankees only scored 15 more runs than the first place Rays, which at least seems as relevant as scoring only 7 more runs than the last place Orioles. Kepner is usually very good, so it’s a shame that he would resort to making a point like that one.

This could probably be said about many teams any year, but due to age, injury and a poor 2008, it’s hard to know what we get from Matsui, JD, Jeter, Posada, Cano and our tag team CF of Melky and Brett. I guess you can throw Swish into that mix too. So aside from expecting about career average years from ARod and Nady, it’s all guesswork. Certainly, talent and history wise, this is still a talented lineup. No big boppers sans ARod, but everyone short of CF could easily post .825 – .850 OPS’s.

I keep thinking about 2 years of Bobby, but the truth is his defense all but nullifies his bat.

Wanna go high-risk, high-reward? How about Bonds? Barry Bonds.